Back to school!
by Carly86
Summary: Post-JE. 'How to be human', course one. Welcome to Alien High, Doctor!


This plays in the same universe as "30 things you can do while naked" and works as a prequel.

* * *

The Doctor walked nervously through the 'school', searching for his classroom. It's always terrible to be 'the new guy'... Although, his memories of the Academy were a bit blurry by now, he still knew how classmates could be and wasn't at all keen of reliving that part his childhood.

With trembling hands, he pulled his timetable out of his blue jacket. Torchwood insisted in this universe that every human-looking alien (half-human, too) took courses like 'Human Manners, Gestures & Customs', 'How to shop without getting arrested' and 'Human relationships & Family bonds'.

The Doctor snorted. He had hundreds of years to learn everything there is to learn about humans, so why should he need these stupid courses?

Still grumbling, he turned the time table around to look at the room numbers. 'Human Manners, Gestures & Customs' was his first course and took place in room 256. Looking at the little brass sign on the nearest door, he realised that he wasn't _anywhere_ near the room.

Glowering, the Doctor put his timetable away, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trousers and wandered down the long corridor.

He glared at every single sign and became more frustrated with every passing second.

23, 24, 25,-

He could be doing so many better things right now...

54, 55, 56,-

...like eating those purple chips Rose swooned over...

76, 77, 78-

...or redecorating their apartment...

108, 109, 110-

...too much pink for his liking really...

134, 135, 136-

...or trying to get more _intimate_ with Rose. It had been quite awkward between them after the beach...

22, 23, 24,-

...a cup of tea would also be love-

The Doctor stopped in his track, frowned and looked back at the sign. There it was, shining smugly with the number 24... exactly like ten minutes ago.

He groaned, feeling exactly like the stupid ape, whose body he now owned. Apparently, he walked in a circle without noticing. Glancing at the watch, Rose gave him (his sense for time wasn't quite the same these days...), the Doctor also realised that he was already late for his first course. _Brilliant._

Glaring, he walked back to the entrance, he passed without noticing, and walked straight to the information desk. Maybe it was part of being a human male, because he suddenly dreaded what came next: he had to ask for the way.

"Excuse me, Miss," he said in the gruffest way possible. The blonde woman behind the desk either didn't notice or didn't care, because she just smiled sweetly and a flirtatiously back at him.

"What can I do for you, handsome?" she said, licking her lips.

The Doctor coughed awkwardly. He still wasn't used to people coming on to him... being it women or men. "Um... Right. I wondered if you could tell me how to get to my classroom? Room 256?"

The woman's face fell a little. "Alien, huh? Just my luck... Take that elevator there-" She pointed behind her. "-to the second floor. The building is round so it shouldn't be so hard to find, even for _your_ lot," she said harshly and went back to reading her magazine. When the Doctor still stood there, blinking at her, she groaned and added, "What are you waiting for? Hurry up and get lost, I'm _busy_."

The Doctor gaped at the very rude woman, turned around and scratched his head. A xenophobic... well, _alienphobic, _person working at an alien school... what had Pete's world come to?

Still grumbling, he walked to the elevator and pressed the button to the second floor.

A _ping_ announced his arrival and the Doctor stepped out to once again search for his classroom.

Thankfully, he finally found it after a short while and sighed in relief when he spotted the number 256.

Being rude and not ginger, he opened the door without knocking.

"-No, Nok. It is not customary to pinch a woman's butt when you-" the teacher, a middle aged, brown haired man with glasses, stopped abruptly when he spotted the Doctor. "Oh, a new face. You have to be-" He looked down at a piece of paper on his desk. "Ah, yes. _The Doctor. _Is 'the' your first or last name, Doc?" He looked around the class, obviously expecting his students to laugh at his poor attempt to joke... Nobody did.

Clearing his throat, he turned back to the human Time Lord. "Right. You are a little late, but that doesn't matter. Though it is a little rude." He faced the class again and said loudly, "Be on time or be a slime." The students repeated his words gravely and the Doctor fought the urge to roll his eyes. Most people here were probably twice his age and the teacher treated them like little kids.

The man turned back to him and smiled kindly. "I'm Allen Morrak, by the way. You can call me Morry, if you like." The Doctor was sure he would _never_ do that. "Please take any seat you like." He sat down next to a chubby man with green hair. Every student looked human but most of them didn't seem to get how humans dressed. Two of them used knickers as a hat and another one had socks on his hands.

"Great," the Morrak continued. "Now, I was just telling Nok here-" He pointed to a blonde 'young' man. "-how to treat a woman on this planet. His people are, quite literally, used to take what they want."

A black haired beauty two seats behind the Doctor sighed ruefully. "Nobody took _me_ for ages! Damn planet, this is," she said while looking at her nails.

Morrak blushed furiously. "Melissa! Women don't say things like that here. People might think you are 'easy' and it isn't safe for a pretty young woman to-"

'Melissa' suddenly stood up, walked to the wall and punched a hole into it like it was out of paper. It was amazing how fast Morrak's red face paled.

"I- I see you are capable of taking care of yourself," he muttered. "Um, anyway human woman are very-"

The rest of the class was downright boring. Apart from 'the finger' being not the friendly gesture, the Doctor always thought it was, there was nothing at all, he didn't already know.

When Morrak came to talk about hygienic, Noc and another guy with black hair moaned loudly. They were the only ones in class who stank enough to attract flies...

The bell rang and it was finally over. The Doctor stretched in his seat and bent over to Flogo, who asked an interesting question about rubber ducks and reminded him of Arthur Weasley. Out of all the Harry Potter books, he loved the Weasley family the most... a whole family of gingers? Brilliant!

Snapping out of his little journey to the magical world, he said to Flogo, "Hey, there! I'm the Doctor and _don't_-" He glared over at the place where Morrak stood before. "- call me Doc. How are you?" he asked a lot more cheerfully.

Flogo gruffed, "Fine, fine... Although, after a lesson like that... Dreadful teacher, isn't he? And pretty annoying. Where are you from? You are looking pretty... human-ly to me."

"Oh, that's a story for a rainy night in front of a burning fire with a mug of hot chocolate, if you ask me. In short: I'm from a long gone planet and due to special 'circumstances', got a human body. Well, when I say human body, I mean one heart and a short life. Growing old and all. Mind you, my other self still has the full body and our magnificent ship. What I got was the woman, though. So, no complaints there! What about you?" the Doctor said all this with an amazing speed, making Flogo's eyes bulge out of his head.

"M- Me? Ehm, yeah... I was a merchant from two galaxies away, but my ship crashed and I had to land here. Torchwood wanted to help me repair it. There is a treaty between our planet... but I kind of like it here. Those rubber ducks, garden gnomes and snowboards." Flogo chuckled. "Humans are too cute. So, that woman of yours... did you bond yet?"

"Bond? Oh! You mean marry, right? No, but we want to... Well, her parents want us to. We personally don't think those rituals are that important," the Doctor answered cheerfully, delighted to have found a new friend.

"Ah, yeah. I heard about human mothers- and fathers-in-law. Pretty intimidating, they are." Flogo nodded in understanding.

The human Time Lord beamed in return. "Yeah, especially when the father is the head of Torchwood!"

Silence. The Doctor suddenly felt every single eye upon him and cringed inwardly. The new boy just as good as admitted to be the headmaster's son...

xXx

Morrak seemed to be the teacher of every single course, much to the student's dismay. Right now, they had 'How to shop without getting arrested', but the Doctor didn't pay attention. It wasn't like he would go into a shop to steal, let's say, a bunch of bananas or something. Really now, he knew better than _that!_

No, the Doctor was much more interested in the behaviour of his classmates. After hearing the news of him being well acquainted with Pete Tyler and especially his daughter, they all went to sit in the last rows, leaving him in the first one like a complete nerd. They all seemed to be scared of saying something wrong that could get them thrown off the planet or something.

"Doc?"

Really, him and being a tell-tale... what were they _thinking? _

"Doc!"

And he didn't know Pete _that _well anyway. Okay, he said he would let his wife loose on him, if he ever hurt Rose but other than that they didn't see much of each other in this universe, yet. And anyway, what did he-

"DOCTOR!"

The Doctor nearly fell out of his chair when Morrak screamed into his ear. "Oi, there is no need to shout, Mister!" He cringed when he heard his voice sound a lot like a snappish Donna for a moment

"There is, if my students don't listen to a word, I'm saying. I tried to reach you for a minute now, Doctor!"

"Really? Whatever did you do that for?" The Doctor looked stunned about that much unwanted attention.

Grinding his teeth, Morrak answered, "Because I'm your teacher, you are my student _and_ I just asked you a question. So, how do you use a cash machine?"

"You have been a human from birth, I suspect, and don't know that?" the human Time Lord answered smugly and grinned at him. "Well, your lot uses those little plastic cards, while I use my sonic screwdriver to confuse the machine to get a lot of money out of it."

Naturally, the Doctor failed the course for that comment and got noted down as 'potential bank robber'. Well, so much for being honest...

xXx

'Human relationships & Family bonds' turned out to be pretty funny, which surprised everyone in the class. Apparently, they just started with the topic of 'sexual relationships' which made the teacher blush every few seconds. Well, that was to be expected from a 21st century, middle aged man, but didn't keep the class from asking embarrassing questions.

"So, where are these 'breasts', you are always talking about?" asked Nok with a big grin on his face. The Doctor was sure, he knew the answer to that and had already seen more breasts in his life than Morrak ever did, but it was still nice to see the teacher cringe like that.

"Ehm, I-"

"Oh, I have breasts! I was told, I look exactly like a human woman... shall I show them to you? For educational purpose only, of course," Melissa said suddenly and moved her hands to the hem of her shirt, ready to pull it over her head.

Morrak looked like he was beginning to panic. "Dear God, no! This is a classroom, not a strip bar."

"But you said, we had to be prepared for everything!" Outraged murmur followed Flogo's words. Such enthusiasm at Melissa's kind of teaching seemed to encourage her and she pulled her shirt over her head, exposing her breasts for the world to see. The male students gaped at her and Morrak's nose began to bleed. Even the Doctor enjoyed the view and intended to ask Rose for some 'education' at home.

After the breasts were safely packed away again and Morrak wiped his nose and the lesson continued like usual. 'Family bonds' caused some confusion among the students because of all the different names, human used for their family members. Mother, father, uncle, aunt, cousin,... they mixed everything up and in the end, Morrak decided to give them a handout, they had to memorise.

All in all, the Doctor's first day at school wasn't _that_ bad, but there was still the thing with his useless honesty...

xXx

"Rose, I'm home!" the Doctor shouted after shutting the door and taking off his jacket.

Rose came out of the kitchen, wiping a dripping frying pan with a cloth. "Oh, I didn't expect you to be so early. How was school?"

"Oh, great! Weeell, when I say great I mean alright... weeell when I say alright, I mean okay; really," the Doctor answered, rubbing his neck.

Rose smiled. "See? Told you, you will be alright! Did anything interesting happen?"

"Yeah, it did!" he answered, beaming at her. "A beautiful woman showed me her breasts!"

He only had time to think one word, before the frying pan hit him straight in the face: _Bugger!_


End file.
